Zeiss Ikon Contarex Microscope Camera

Zeiss Ikon · Fixed lens · 1970

Also known as: Contarex Microscope camera · Contarex Microscope-camera · Zeiss Ikon Contarex Microscope Camera · Contarex Microscope · Contarex microscope body · Contarex Mikroskop-Kamera · Contarex Mikroskopkamera

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
With Bullseye-style wind lever	Contarex	—	—	No figure published (Pacific Rim Camera: 'Production dates and quantities are unknown')
With later-style wind lever	Contarex	—	—	No figure published

Christie's South Kensington, Cameras and Optical Toys, sale 7752, 9 October 1997, lot 288, "A definitive Zeiss Ikon Contarex Collection", sold as a single lot (price realised £67,500 against a £70,000–80,000 estimate; Christie's does not break out the premium), lists three microscope cameras, all chrome, under the heading "Special-purpose cameras" with the Hologon Ultrawide: one "with shutter"; one "with shutter and microscope mounting ring"; and one "with shutter blind, microscope mounting ring with integral leaf shutter and removable magazine back". These read as the fittings Pacific Rim Camera describes as varying with the intended use rather than as separate models. The same lot's "Contarex Microscopy set" is an ordinary Bullseye, Z49117, on a Carl Zeiss Tessovar stand.
Leitz Photographica Auction 8 offered a "Contarex Microscope-camera", condition A-, dated c.1970 and described as a "rare camera without finder, light meter and lens for use with microscope". It went unsold against an estimate of €500–600 (starting price €350). Leitz's buyer's premium is 24% within the EU and 20% for shipment outside it.
Special Auction Services, 30 April 2014: lot 2 (serial 200005) sold against a £150–200 estimate, price not published on the LiveAuctioneers record; lot 3, another chrome body with a working shutter, was passed at £100–150. No microscope body appeared among Yahoo! Auctions Japan's closed Contarex listings in the six months to November 2026, and none appeared on eBay in that period.
Leitz Photographica Auction 29, lot 384, "Zeiss Ikon Ultrawide Camera": a microscope body "beautifully designed and converted" into a compact wide-angle camera, with a built-in 21mm finder and spirit level and a fixed Biogon 4.5/21mm no. 3448624 with chrome hood, dated c.1980. It made €1,560 including buyer's premium against a €1,000–1,200 estimate. Leitz does not say who converted it; on its c.1980 date the work postdates Zeiss Ikon's camera production, and the camera is not the Hologon Ultrawide.
No source gives a catalogue number, factory price or period price for the microscope camera. Pacific Rim Camera says it was sold through Zeiss Ikon's scientific and ophthalmological catalogues rather than the photographic ones.

How to tell them apart (expand)

A Contarex-shaped chrome body with a flat top: no prism housing, no finder of any kind, no meter window (Pacific Rim Camera; Leitz Auction: 'without finder, light meter and lens')
'Zeiss Ikon' on the top plate and nowhere a model name; never engraved 'Contarex' (Pacific Rim Camera)
No serial number on the bodies Pacific Rim Camera describes; one body sold by Special Auction Services in 2014 carried 200005 (see serial notes)
A mounting flange on the front for the microscope fitting, never the ordinary Contarex bayonet; the flange type varies with the intended use (Pacific Rim Camera)
Shutter dial with 1–1/500, B and T and no 1/1000; PC flash socket on the back (Pacific Rim Camera)
Removable back that takes the standard Contarex magazine backs (Pacific Rim Camera)
Listing trap: an ordinary Contarex SLR sold with the microscope adapter 20.1616, bellows with a microscope attachment, or a Bullseye on a Zeiss Tessovar stand is not this camera

With Bullseye-style wind lever:

Wind lever styled like the lever of the first Contarex, the Bullseye (Pacific Rim Camera)
Otherwise as every microscope body: chrome, 'Zeiss Ikon' on a black top-plate panel and no model name, no finder or meter window, a mounting flange on the front instead of the Contarex bayonet

With later-style wind lever:

Wind lever of the later Contarex style rather than the Bullseye's (Pacific Rim Camera)
Chrome, 'Zeiss Ikon' on the top plate, no model name; Pacific Rim Camera says no serial number

With Bullseye-style wind lever: Pacific Rim Camera, the only source that distinguishes the bodies, says that "some examples have wind levers styled on the Bullseye, while others have later style levers". It names no example, gives no dates and does not say which came first. The obvious reading, that the Bullseye-lever bodies were built while the Bullseye was current (1959–66), is an inference, and it conflicts with English Wikipedia's statement that the microscope camera used the chassis of the Super.
With later-style wind lever: The second of the two lever styles Pacific Rim Camera reports, again without an example or a date. Which of the bodies sold at auction carries which lever is not stated by any catalogue: Leitz Auction's body, dated c.1970, and the three microscope cameras in Christie's 1997 Contarex collection are described without reference to the lever. If English Wikipedia is right that the body was built on the Super's chassis, this is the Super-era camera.

Serial-range notes

none: Pacific Rim Camera says the microscope cameras "are not model identified, nor do they have a serial number". Leitz Auction's body (Auction 8) is catalogued without one.
200005: Special Auction Services (Newbury), Photographic and Scientific Instruments, 30 April 2014, lot 2: a chrome microscope camera with serial no. 200005 and a working shutter, described as "possibly pre-production as models do not carry serial numbers and unconventional film feed and take up housings". Unlike the serials of the Contarex SLR bodies, the number has no letter prefix. It sold against a £150–200 estimate; the price is not shown.

Specifications

Shutter: Focal plane (Pacific Rim Camera); Christie's catalogues one body 'with shutter blind' · 1–1/500 s, B and T (Pacific Rim Camera; English Wikipedia) · flash sync PC socket on the back (Pacific Rim Camera)
Film advance: lever, in a Bullseye style or a later style depending on the body (Pacific Rim Camera)
Back: removable; takes the Contarex interchangeable magazine backs (Pacific Rim Camera). One of Christie's three examples is catalogued with a removable magazine back
Meter: none
Country: West Germany (Zeiss Ikon, Stuttgart)
Accessories: Contarex interchangeable magazine backs (Pacific Rim Camera) · Microscope mounting rings, one type with an integral leaf shutter (Christie's 1997)

Figures we worked out rather than found: year 1970 is Leitz Auction's 'c.1970' for one undated, unserialled body; no source gives a start or end date for the model, and the Bullseye-style levers Pacific Rim Camera reports suggest some were built earlier · film_format 35mm follows from the Contarex housing and its Contarex magazine backs; no source gives the frame size, so frame_sizes is left empty

Where sources disagree

Chassis

The Super's chassis, stripped of finder and mirror (English Wikipedia, citing Pacific Rim Camera)
Some bodies with Bullseye-style wind levers and others with later levers (Pacific Rim Camera)

The Pacific Rim Camera page that English Wikipedia cites does not say Super; it says only "the Contarex frame". Both generations may have been used, but no source says so directly.

Serial number

None (Pacific Rim Camera)
200005 on one body, catalogued as possibly pre-production (Special Auction Services, 2014)

What reviewers say

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History

The Contarex microscope camera is the Contarex with everything a photographer looks through taken away. Zeiss Ikon built it on the Contarex housing for photomicrography and sold it, by Pacific Rim Camera’s account, through its scientific and ophthalmological catalogues rather than the photographic ones. It was not listed in the photographic catalogues, and no source gives a catalogue number or price for it. It has no prism, no mirror, no meter and no lens mount for photography. The front carries a flange for whatever microscope fitting the camera was ordered with, never the ordinary Contarex bayonet. What is left is the film transport, a focal-plane shutter running from 1 second to 1/500 with B and T, a PC socket on the back, and the removable back, which takes the standard Contarex magazine backs. With no finder, the image can only be framed and focused through the microscope.

The body says very little about itself. It is chrome only, marked “Zeiss Ikon” on the top plate, with no model name and, on Pacific Rim’s account, no serial number. One body sold by Special Auction Services in 2014 did carry a number, 200005. The auctioneer took that, and the body’s unusual film feed and take-up housings, as a sign that it might be pre-production. When it was made is not recorded. Leitz Auction dates its example to about 1970. English Wikipedia says the camera used the chassis of the Super, stripped of finder and mirror, and that the Hologon Ultrawide used the same stripped second-generation chassis. The Pacific Rim page Wikipedia cites for this says only “the Contarex frame”, and it adds that some bodies have wind levers styled on the Bullseye’s while others have later levers. Those two lever styles are the only versions this page records. Neither has been tied to a date or to a particular camera, so the likeliest explanation, that the camera was built across both generations of Contarex, remains unconfirmed.

Configurations vary more than versions. Christie’s 1997 sale of a large Contarex collection included three microscope bodies. One had only the shutter, one came with a microscope mounting ring, and the third had a mounting ring with its own leaf shutter and a removable magazine back. These look like fittings chosen for the microscope in use rather than separate models. Zeiss Ikon also made a Contarex microscope adapter, 20.1616, which Leitz Auction has sold in an accessory lot with the bellows 20.1617 and the right-angle finder 20.1634. None of this is the microscope camera: a Bullseye on a Tessovar stand, a Contarex with bellows and a microscope attachment, or a loose adapter is not this camera.

Pacific Rim Camera says the bodies are not particularly rare, but few reach the market and they fetch little. Leitz could not sell one at an estimate of €500–600, and Special Auction Services estimated its two at £150–200 and £100–150, selling one at an undisclosed price and passing the other. Without a finder the camera is useless for ordinary photography, and the only published selling price is for a body later converted into a wide-angle camera with a built-in 21mm finder and a fixed Biogon 4.5/21mm, which Leitz sold for €1,560 including buyer’s premium. Before buying, check that the shutter runs at every speed and that the back seals light. Find out which flange or mounting ring is fitted and whether it suits the microscope you plan to use, because the camera is only as useful as its fitting. Make sure a magazine back, if one is included, is a Contarex magazine. Most bodies have no serial number to check, so the markers above (the flat chrome top, the “Zeiss Ikon” plate, the 1/500 dial and the flange) identify the camera.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

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